


To Drown Is A Struggle For The Extras Too

by Zayrastriel



Series: The Drowning 'verse [13]
Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Angst, Side Story, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:31:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zayrastriel/pseuds/Zayrastriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of humanity might be wiped out but there’s more than just the three (now four) lost souls in the Netherlands, the angsting quartet in America-Canada, a girl staying with a snarky politician in England , a confused competent accountant in Antarctica, and an imprisoned zombie girl in Sydney.  And everyone has a story worth telling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Drown Is A Struggle For The Extras Too

“Mel!”

She raises her head wearily from the desk.  Somehow, it seems, during the shift she drifted asleep – slowly, she thinks, because there’s a fair amount of work she’s completed (though on autopilot; she doesn’t remember doing any of it at _all_.)

“Mel,” the voice repeats with just a hint of what she can’t help but identify as impatience.

With a sigh, Mel raises her head higher from the surprisingly comfortable wood and turns towards the sound-

And then _straight_ on to her feet, trying to brush the wrinkles out of her clothes (without much success) as she determinedly looks anywhere but straight ahead at her supervisor.  “Sorry, Tomas,” she mumbles as quietly, but hopefully audibly and sincerely, as she can.

The man – taller than her and lean and, you know what, why not, her quiet crush – lets out a soft sigh, weary and exhausted.  “Don’t.  I- please, don’t – eurgh.”

She looks up to see him rub his forehead wearily, and remembers (not for the first time) that he’s only twenty seven. 

Not much older than her, though she feels ancient most of the time and he feels (not looks, but _feels_ ) even more so. 

“It’s fine.  Really.  You barely sleep, anyway.  I’m just glad you got some now – even if I would have preferred you’d had it in bed.  I was going to get you to a room, but-“ Tomas stops abruptly and flushes slightly.  “Sorry, that – I-“

“It’s fine,” Mel cuts in, a mirror of his own words, and she means it.  That said, though, she knows why he faltered; why he wouldn’t have woken her up or just carried her.  The situation here is…not good.  And well, women tend to get the worst of that.

Also, people talk.  She doesn’t have time for that.

She’s not particularly sure what she has time for, but whatever.

“Anyway, I just came in to tell you that your friend from the Netherlands called.” 

“Oh.”  _It’s probably Lia_ , Mel surmises – they mightn’t have been amazingly close in high school (it was more she and Ara, if she has to pick one out of the three in mainland Europe) but now it’s Lia who talks most to her.

Not that that’s particularly often, of course. 

She can’t stop being bitter about it, though it’s not Lia’s fault at all that all of Mel’s friends are either missing ( _dead_ , she can’t help thinking), zombies or too isolated to be able to just pick up the phone and make a call to the north-west corner of Ireland.

“I’ll call her back soon,” Mel mutters without much enthusiasm.

Tomas raises an eyebrow.  “She’s actually still on the line – wouldn’t hang up without having spoken to you.”

That’s unusual – Lia will call her every couple of weeks, like it’s a duty – but she’ll just hang up if Mel isn’t there to take the call.  Sometimes Mel will get back to her.  Days like this, she wouldn’t have.

But there’s obviously something important going on, or Lia’s got no one else to talk to.

That’s something she _wants_ to feel bitter about, but can’t.  Like it or not, this is the best way of actually finding out what’s happening with the world.  Whatever tidbits she gets with a call, she treasures.

~

Mel doesn’t actually wake up until she picks up the phone and murmurs a polite hello.

“ _Yo, Mel_!”

It’s not Lia.  It’s _Ara_.

“Oh, hi, Ara,” Mel stutters, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that she hasn’t spoken to Ara in – about five months before the end of the world, so what is that-

“ _It’s been ages!  Like two years or something!_ ”

It must have been; because Mel can’t fathom how the warmth of Ara’s natural sarcastic tone could have somehow evolved into the false-bright, brittle coldness that Mel is hearing.

“Yeah,” she agrees with all the paltry enthusiasm she can possibly muster.  “Something like that.”

~

So there’s a whole bunch of zombies (knew that), humanity is trying to wipe out them and they’re trying to wipe out humanity (figured as much), and there’s a toxin somewhere that will kill them all.  Maybe. 

This sounds sort of like a really bad fanfic.  Mel isn’t really sure which fandom it’d be for, but she supposes that doesn’t really matter anymore…

“ _What doesn’t matter_?”

“Huh?”

“ _You said ‘it doesn’t matter anymore’_.”

“Oh.”  _Did I?_ she asks herself, somewhat uncaringly.  It doesn’t matter, she supposes.  “Okay.”

“ _Hmm_.”

That’s a sound Mel is vaguely familiar with, if she thinks back hard enough to Australia, to group dinners that grew far and few between but somehow, marvellously, didn’t stop.  It’s probably accompanied by a frown – like, if she tries hard enough, Ara can somehow reach through the phone and drag everything out of her head.

But she’s never really had an issue with sharing how she feels and now she can’t quite bring herself to care.

_When did that start?_

(August 2016-)  “ _So how are you_?” Ara asks abruptly.

She shrugs automatically, though she’s aware no one will see the gesture.  “I’m okay,” she says dully.

“ _What’s that guy like?  The one who answered the phone_?”

“Tomas?  He’s…nice?”

“ _You’re not very talkative_.”

It sounds like she’s being scolded.

And for a brief second, a very, very brief second, the universe splits in two.

Two possibilities.

And here’s one:

 _“Well, if I was going to say something,” she snaps, ignoring the sudden surprised intake of breath on the other end of the phone, “then I’d talk about the fact that I am in the middle of nowhere, and I haven’t seen my parents in two years – I don’t even know if they’re still alive!  And you all talk to each other and have your own dramas and everything, and remember me once every couple of months!  What do you_ mean _, what’s that guy like?  He’s just trying to survive!  This isn’t some stupid romance novel!  Like all of the rest of us, if you’d get your head out of your own ass and realise that!”_

But here’s the other:

 _“Yeah, I know.  Sorry_.”

And still breathless from the rush of adrenaline because that’s the most she’s _felt_ in years, she smiles.  “Yeah, I know.  Sorry.”

“ _Hmmm.  Alright, well, I’ll leave you to it_.”

She hangs up, leaving Mel to listen to slow, steady being of the phone.

After a couple of minutes, she hears the door open.  “Mel?  Everything okay?”  It’s Tomas.  His voice is quiet and hesitant, a deep baritone.  For the first time, she realises that his accent isn’t actually Irish.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Mel replies.  _What’s that guy like_?

She doesn’t know.  It’s been two years, and all she knows is that he’s twenty seven years old.  She doesn’t know what he used to do, what country he’s from, who he might have lost.  And he can’t know that Mel was here on law exchange – arrived a little early to get ready for the start of semester and never ended up leaving.

Outside this room, there’s two species fighting for survival.  There are people manipulating each other, betraying each other.  There’s chaos and change.

But right here, right now –

“Where are you from, Tomas?”

\- There’s this.


End file.
